Somehow the past couple of years since the pandemic started has seemed like an incredibly long thread of time, and in other ways, it’s felt like a rapid passage of time. Being frequently quarantined and having diminished social activities has allowed many of us to be with ourselves and our thoughts….a lot. For many people, it’s been a time for deep personal reflection and perhaps even a space for examining our past experiences. As a therapist, one common theme that continues to come up is the concept of human brokenness; the idea that people, whether based on their trauma, emotional struggles, or physical ailments, believe they are somehow fragmented, irreparable, or not fully whole. I hear people describe themselves as “broken”, “damaged” and “not enough” regularly in my work. 

As I’ve been sitting with personal and professional reflections of this idea, I’ve come to learn about the art of Kintsugi. Kintsugi is a form of Japanese art in which broken pottery is repaired by gluing it back together using gold lacquer or a similar material. Part of the meaning behind this artform is to honor the history of an item and not dismiss it simply because it has had shatters and cracks, but instead to embrace the beauty of an item’s flaws and defects. It is part of a broader philosophy in Japanese culture to embrace the beauty of human imperfection.

What I love about the concept of Kintsugi is that it fundamentally challenges the notion that we often seem to have in our society – that what is broken or damaged is discardable, useless, and something that elicits a deep sense of shame. Through Kinstsugi, though, we see that it is in fact the imperfection of an item, the very existence of the shattered pieces and the golden glue that binds it back together, that makes it beautiful. 

I see this as such an important thing for us to embrace in order to move towards accepting the many pieces of who we are. It’s so crucial to see one another and ourselves as more than our challenges and vulnerabilities, but instead as parts that come together to form a complete being. Our brokenness is not to be hidden, but perhaps even something that should be celebrated and honored. And, in seeing how each of those shattered pieces can come back together and be reunited, there is a knowing that we can be whole once again. I believe there is so much beauty and healing that could be accomplished through the art of taking something broken and reassembling it so that what was once severed is mended piece by piece, just as in therapy, by examining the parts of ourselves that feel broken, little by little, we can be beautifully put back together.